Monday, December 24, 2007

How to waste time on Xmas eve

We're at my parents' in Columbus for Christmas, and last night my brother Mark and his wife Suzanne came over for dinner. At some point, the issue of Segways came up (I have no idea why). Anyway, Suzanne concurred with the recent assessment on "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me" that riding a Segway was the 21st-century equivalent of wearing a propeller beanie, and allowed as how she wouldn't be caught dead on one.

This is a woman who used to have a white Ford Fiesta with magnetic cow spots on it and a license plate that read "NOT NRML," and who now can be seen riding around on a non-motorized scooter with oversized tires or jogging in shoes that she made ice-proof by attaching tacks to their soles. This is not someone who has the slightest concern about what she looks like, or what other people think about her; in fact, I think it's safe to say that that's what we all love most about Suzanne, is her flagrant rejection of social norms.

So for her to say that she wouldn't ever ride a Segway because she'd look silly--well, it's enough to prompt one to ask who this pod person was, and what it had done with one's real sister-in-law.

At the very least, it prompted me to spend a ridiculous amount of time on Christmas Eve day searching Google images for the perfect picture to Photoshop Suzanne's head onto. Once I'd found this one, the trick was to find a picture of Suzanne's head from just the right angle, since the original shot was kind of oblique. Success: a photo of Suzanne getting ready to ride the zip line at Snow Mountain Ranch in Colorado from a family reunion a couple of years ago. Oh yeah!

Some people spend the day before Christmas baking; some bring in fresh greens to decorate the mantel or put the final touches on those homemade gifts. If the Segway is, indeed, the 21st-century equivalent of the propeller beanie, then perhaps Photoshopping fake pictures is the 21st-century equivalent of those more homely holiday preparations. We'll see if Suzanne agrees when she opens up the matted, framed print of "Suzanne, the Segway Siren" later today.

3 comments:

Jane Kokernak
said...

A few years ago, Jimmy (my husband), was loaned a Segway for a few days so he could write a review of it for some tech magazine. I happened to drive home from work and pull into our street at the moment he was coming down the road, on the Segway, with his bike helmet on. He looked gleeful, leaning forward and "speeding" toward me. I pulled into the driveway and said to my neighbor, Julie, who was watching all the nonsense: "Am I married to this person?" Jimmy later asked me if I wanted a turn on the Segway, and I said, "No. I will never try it."

Thanks, Anon.! "Gleefully evil" pretty much sums up most holiday traditions in my family. And believe it or not, Suzanne actually has the photo on her desk in her home office. So secretly, I think she has a thing for Segways...